13 September 2024
Media: Rotorua Daily Post
Topic: Launch of Foodprint app
Enquiry
I am looking into an app that is launching in Rotorua next week, Foodprint, and have a few questions regarding food waste in the city for a story on Foodprint that I'm writing.
The app centers around 'food rescue' by partnering up with local eateries, giving them a platform to sell surplus and imperfect food for a discount to prevent food waste.
Questions are:
- Where does food waste currently sit in relation to other wasted items in the district's landfill?
- Would you consider food waste to be a prominent issue in Rotorua? Does it make up a lot of Rotorua’s landfill?
- Have you got any stats/figures on landfill/food waste in Rotorua that you could provide?
- What is currently done in the city surrounding waste management? Are there any other initiatives around to reduce food waste?
- How will the launch of an app like Foodprint help to reduce the current amount of food waste in Rotorua?
Response
From Rotorua Lakes Council Manager Waste and Climate Change Craig Goodwin:
Rotorua Lakes Council is committed to reducing the amount of waste sent to landfill to protect the environment.
Waste audits in our district indicate food and garden organics make up about 55 per cent of household waste.
Organic waste in landfill creates methane gas and leachate, which are problematic to our environment. Composting and Anaerobic Digestion (AD) technologies divert this waste from landfill, reduces landfill emissions and gives nutrients back to the land.
Composting and AD are processes that can help increase food security, reduce ‘food miles’, waste emissions and reduce reliance on commercial composts and fertilisers. If you are interested in starting your own compost or want to improve your skills, sign on to one of our up-coming free family friendly workshops.
Council offers a range of different workshops and education programmes to help with waste management one of these is a composting workshops which offers a subsidised compost bin for those who attend the workshop.
The average Kiwi family throws away three shopping trolleys worth of edible food each year. So any initiative that helps reduce the amount of food waste from the hospitality and food sector is a welcome contribution to reducing organic waste going to landfill from our district.
Commercial waste from these sectors is an area where we let the businesses work out what works best for them, and let them make their own commercial arrangements to manage their waste, there’s no one size fits all like a wheelie bin is for a household.
